Secret To Everything: Believe In Yourself

I think the secret to everything in life is first to believe in yourself, and then to never stop believing in yourself. I think all success can be traced back to one believing in oneself and all failure can be traced back to not believing in oneself.

You have to be willing to believe in yourself even after a gazillion failures. You have to keep believing in yourself when no one else does. And…this one is very important…you have to keep believing in yourself even AFTER you succeed. In fact, especially after you succeed. You can’t rely on your past success to get you through. You have to believe that you still have that same magic you did when you succeeded. You also can’t rely on the praise or recognition of others. You aren’t successful because you are hanging out with Eminem and Puff Daddy and Quentin Tarantino and Beyonce. You are successful because you are YOU. And you are every bit as capable and worthy as those guys.

Further thoughts:

Anything that we do that is good is first preceded by faith in ourselves. For some of us, we may have faith that a higher power, or God, endowed us with talents and gifts to use for the benefit of ourself and the rest of humanity. For others, it may just be that they believe they can do it. But regardless, I believe everyone has moments where it feels like their life is one big ball of shit. For many of us, that may happen a lot. I am extremely grateful for those moments. For me, the crappier I feel about my life, the better I feel. I know that sounds weird, but I just think: if was born into fame and fortune, it wouldn’t be that hard to “break out.” The harder it is for me to “break out,” the better. That means that when I do, that proves that I’m exponentially more talented and stronger in every way than someone who was given their success on a silver platter. I don’t want it to be easy. I want life to throw everything it’s got at me. Being in a shit hole actually motivates me that much more to put my whole effort into it. I enjoy the pain. It’s just like working out, or running up a mountain side in a snowstorm. I love it. Three of my favorite words: “bring it on.” (And I should add a fourth word: “Bitch.”)

I’m sorry if my words seem crass. The me from today would have offended the me from yesterday several times already in this journal entry. But then, the me from yesterday didn’t accomplish that much, either.

So nothing that anyone can say or do to me can bring me down. In fact, they can only make me rise to the top. I’m actually enjoying this, probably one of the hardest phases of my life so far, immensely. Challenge is good. Challenge is great. It’s after one has succeeded that is the boring part. That’s why we have so many movies about the pre-success phase and practically none about the post-success phase. Can you imagine watching a movie about Donald Trump lounging around being a fat-ass? And yet we love watching movies about the underdog. Why is that? Why is it more enjoyable to watch Eminem growing up white trash, in a trailer with his mom, than it would be to watch Eminem at an awards ceremony hanging out with celebrities?

But no matter what, I have decided that I will always push myself. Laziness is my enemy. The worst fate imaginable to me is being “fat, dumb, and happy.”

2 comments

Seriously, thank you for sharing. I am writing a piece titled “Pain: A Constituent of Truth” and have been struggling to finish it. Your journal entry just summarized much of what I have been trying to write in very simple terms. And the best writers take complex subjects and make them understandable to the layman.